Yahoo Outlines Plans to Beat Google

It seems like everyone wants a piece of Google these days. Not only has Microsoft laid down the gauntlet, but Yahoo has now picked it up, slapped it on the side of Eric Schmidt’s dimpled cheeks, spat on it, and thrown it back down again – get the picture?

At Yahoo’s recent analyst day, we hear from Yahoo CEO, Terry Semel about their plans to leapfrog Google.

By using a variety of techniques, from encouraging users to “tag” information they find useful on the web to getting them to answer questions from other users directly, Yahoo hopes to make its search results more relevant and so reverse the slip in its share of the global search market.

Meanwhile, Tim Cadogan, vice president of search, explained how their improving their ad platform.

“We’re exposing more data about the quality of advertisers’ listings than any other competitor,” Cadogan said. The system “shows on a five-point scale how well an ad is performing,” as well as which user queries indicate explicit or implied intent to shop, he added.

Yahoo’s attempt to draw on its audience to improve its search services reflects a clear difference from Google’s strategy, which has focused on improving the company’s core algorithms, according to analysts.

“Yahoo is saying, ‘We’ll move the playing field back to where our strength is: core search,'” said Allen Weiner of Gartner. “It’s a statement to the business community and competitors that they are still No. 1.”

I tend to agree with the former. Between the two, Google’s strength is “core search”, while Yahoo’s lies in tapping into its millions of portal users.